I read online about people using business card holders for their RoscoLux flash gels so I hopped over to Office Max and found a tiny one for my camera bag and a larger one for the rest of them…both on clearance. Score.

The smaller one contains all the colors in the Strobist gel pack and the larger one has as many as I could fit. I still have a small stack left so I just bought binder rings to hold those together.

After reading this article and this one on Strobist, and this one on DIY Photography I decided to try my hand at making a DIY gridspot. If you don’t know what a grid spot it, it basically turns your flash into a spot light that can look very soft and cool by focusing the light forward rather than it bouncing all over the place.

A store bought gridspot is nice, but often pricey.

If you want to see what a gridspot can do, and get some inspiration click here!

So here’s my step-by-step on making your own for about ten bucks, depending on what you have laying around:

Step One: Gather supplies

• 1 sheet of black cloroplast. I got mine here. (Check the strobist articles above for other materials)
• Xacto knife of boxcutter. (After today, I’d go with the xacto!)
• Glue or double stick tape if you’re impatient like me
• t-square or a metal ruler and steady hand
• black duct tape
• Cardboard. (I used a cut up box, but a cereal box may be easier.)
• Cutting board or surface you don’t care about

Step Two: Cut strips of cloroplast about 1/4 inch bigger than your flash width-wise. You want to leave yourself some room to trim your grid down. I cut mine to 3 inches to start.

Step Three: Do this until you have enough to stack to cover your flash. I ended up with nine (I have a Canon 430EX flash, btw).

Step four: Using glue or double stick tape, start stacking your strips so that the squares line up. (This is where that little extra may come in handy.)

Like so:

If you used glue, this is where you’d rubber band “clamp” them and set them aside to dry. This is where patience may come into play depending on the glue you used. Seeing as I have none…

Trim the sides of your grid so they’re even with the edges of your flash. Do this SLOWLY. Trust me.

Step Six: Mold your cardboard snoot. I did this by rolling my flash with the cardboard and marking and cutting from there. If you’re good at measurements, you can do it that way too! From here on our pardon the horrible flash in the photos…I only have one at the moment so I had to use my pop-up craptastic flash.

Step seven: now that you have enough cardboard to wrap around, line the inside of the snoot with black duct tape. Now you need to place your grid at the end of your cardboard and secure it in with the tape or glue. Now you’re going to wrap that cardboard and close it into the tube shape. I wrapped the non-grid end around my flash while I taped it shut with duct tape to make sure it fit snugly.

(Pic taken before I lined the inside with tape, make sure you do that before you secure the grid and tape it shut)

Now you should have your full assembled grid spot!

Test shot, right before my camera batteries died effectively cutting my fun time off abruptly.

My Audry Hepburn picture in my living room, flash on an off-camera shoe cord held to camera left:

I will add more examples and others taken with the shorter gridspot I’m making now soon! (The one time my back up batteries were not charged!)

EDIT: Here’s some examples I snapped off tonight. They were all 200 ISO I believe, with an off-camera 430EX flash set to 1/8th power. Shutter speed 1/125 @ f10 held at arm’s length.

The arsenal (large grid spot, small grid spot, and a double ended snoot…inside silver at one end, black at the other):

Here is my Gaia statue with regular, from the front bare flash:

So I shot relatively the same angle for each of the above. The large grid spot first, then the small, then the black side of the snoot, and finally the silver. I don’t have a light stand yet so it was tough to hit the same angle but you get the general idea. The longer grid throws a brighter more concentrated spot, the smaller throws a softer spot. It’s subtle but if you look at the snoot pics, the silver side is a bit more feathered and brighter but still soft. Enjoy! (Click the pics for larger views)

Thanks for looking, spread this link around if you like it and please, show me your DIY grid spots!